birdnote q&a: christmas bird count (on holiday cards, and outdoors)

IF LIKE ME you know a lot of “bird people,” perhaps you’ve noticed a trend in the holiday cards you receive. Perhaps you’ve noticed that the male Northern cardinal rules.

“The Northern cardinal–male version–is about as red as a bird comes, so no wonder that it turns up on Christmas cards,” says Ellen Blackstone, my friend at the public-radio show BirdNote, the repeat guest for our series of bird-themed Q&As.

In the story that follows, Ellen provided me with green links to audio files from BirdNote’s archive that you won’t want to miss; click them. Information on how to hear BirdNote daily is at the bottom of the page–and if you want to give thanks to nonprofit BirdNote for all their wonderful avian “aha’s,” you can do so at this link.

A little inside-birding humor: A friend of Ellen’s once did “a CCBC, a Christmas Card Bird Count” (playing with the name of the famous Christmas Bird Count; details at the bottom of the page) and came up with the cardinal at Number 1, black-capped chickadee at Number 2, and the European robin in third place.

If traditional Christmas colors are red and green, why no green birds on the cards? Well, how many green birds have you seen out your window?

“The only green bird we see in the United States–and this only in far-south Texas, in the Lower Rio Grande Valley–is the green jay,” says Ellen (photo above). “And that’s really more chartreuse, with a bold blue head, so it doesn’t classify as ‘holiday colors.’”

Any more red birds to be seen? The house finch is common from coast to coast, border to border, except for the Plains states, and the male (above)–depending on what he eats–can be very close to red.

If there is a pair of birds that epitomizes the holiday season, it would probably be the male and female red crossbill, Ellen says (photos above and below, respectively). “Use your imagination, and you can say that they’re actually ‘red’ and ‘green.’ And…their main food is conifer seeds.” How festive (and what perfectly adapted bills they have for the task).

Which of these birds might turn up near you? Join a Christmas Bird Count, and see what you can see. Prior birding expertise is not required; all extra pairs of eyes focused on this citizen-science effort can help.

In my garden, apparently we’re having a blue Christmas–as in blue jays. A flock is screaming right now, even as I type. Typically I see two or three at a time, but this winter so far: nine or 10 loudmouths at a time, each with something that doesn’t sound much like “Merry Christmas” to say.

The BirdNote backstory: In 2002, the then-executive director of Seattle Audubon heard a short public-radio show called StarDate. “We could do that with birds,” she thought. In 2005 the idea became a two-minute daily public-radio show. Lucky for all of us!

Photos used by permission with thanks to Gregg Thompson (crossbills, male and female); Joanne Kamo (cardinal); and Tom Gray (green jay and house finch male).

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Welcome! I’m Margaret Roach, a leading garden writer for 25 years—at ‘Martha Stewart Living,’ ‘Newsday,’ and in three books. I host a public-radio podcast; I also lecture, plus hold tours at my 2.3-acre Hudson Valley (NY) Zone 5B garden, and always say no to chemicals and yes to great plants.